The first thing I did when looking at Joe Starks was look up the meaning of his name.
Joe: He will enlarge
Starks: Strong
Right off the bat I can tell Hurston did not choose this name by mistake. Joe was responsible for the expansion of Eatonville. I will mention that the word 'stark' also means bare, but I chose the German name meaning since the funny thing is that he has very little to be strong with! Bare handed success.
At first, Joe was Janie's ticket out of the ruins of her dreams. A chance to start over with better circumstances. As time went on, he became a ball and chain that weighed her down and suppressed her personality. On a side note, in Asian countries the practice of binding trees from a young age as to force them to grow in abnormal, artistic forms is quite popular. If Janie was a tree, then Joe was forcing her to grow in what he felt was appropriate instead of letting her grow strong and tall.
I also looked into the point where the narrator began to refer to Joe as 'Jody'. It was very close to the final pages where he was alive. Apparently Jody is the feminine nickname for Joe, which comes from the name Joseph. Oh look, Joseph was in the Bible! You know what he became? The most powerful man in Egypt other than the Pharaoh himself. How convenient, a mayor is a position of power too is it not?
Hurston definitely chose each name in this story with care. The amount of connections that can be made has passed the level of 'coincidence'.
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